Robot sub's search for Malaysian jet halted - ocean too deep

Updated 11:01 pm, Monday, April 14, 2014

Angus Houston heads the search for Flight 370, which went missing March 8.

Angus Houston heads the search for Flight 370, which went missing March 8.

Photo: Richard Polden, AFP/Getty Images

Robot sub's search for Malaysian jet halted - ocean too deep

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Perth, Australia --

The search area for the missing Malaysian jet has proved too deep for a robotic submarine, which was hauled back to the surface of the Indian Ocean less than halfway through its first seabed hunt for wreckage and the all-important black boxes, authorities said Tuesday.

Search crews sent the Bluefin 21 deep into the Indian Ocean on Monday to begin scouring the seabed for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 after failing for six days to detect any signals believed to be from its black boxes.

But after only six hours of its planned 16-hour mission on the seabed, the autonomous underwater vehicle exceeded its maximum depth limit of 15,000 feet and its built-in safety feature returned it to the surface, the search coordination center said in a statement.

What if anything it might have discovered during the six-hour search was still being analyzed, the center said.

Search authorities knew that the primary wreckage from Flight MH370 was likely lying at the limit of the Bluefin's dive capabilities. Deeper diving submersibles have been evaluated, but none is yet available in the search area.

The Bluefin 21 can create a three-dimensional sonar map of any debris on the ocean floor.

The search moved below the surface after crews picked up a series of underwater sounds over the past two weeks that were consistent with signals from an aircraft's black boxes.

"We haven't had a single detection in six days, so I guess it's time to go under water, " Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search off Australia's west coast, said Monday.

Flight 370 disappeared March 8 after departing Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with 239 people on board.